SOURCE: “Life of George du Maurier,” in his George du Maurier. His Life and Work, Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1949, pp. 11-35.

In the following essay, Whiteley provides an overview of Du Maurier's life and work, focusing most extensively on his circle of literary and artist friends.

To give here more than an outline of du Maurier's life would be unnecessary, even if it were possible. No author was more autobiographical in the compass of his three novels, where are to be found faithful records of his own early experiences and of characters founded on contemporary friends and acquaintances. Henry James once wrote that du Maurier lived his trio of novels rather than wrote them, and thus gave others the rare and charming sense of their being more lived than read. In the sketch that follows I have tried, whenever possible, to indicate the main events in his own words...